When Ditza Or was a guest last time in the studio of Avery Gilad and Yair Sharki, just three months ago, it seemed that she was being hugged too tightly. The mother of the abductee Avinatan Or then attacked Netanyahu, pointed to his personal failure and called for elections. A short time later, she even received an extensive article in the main edition of 12 and voiced identical messages.
Ditza Or Shabana was kidnapped in Gaza;
offers a prisoner exchange deal for Sinwar; Take the sons of Hertzi Halevi, Galant, the Patzerit, Ronan Bar, and Nitsan Alon for the 109 kidnapped..Yes…it’s true, you don’t judge a mother who is hurt by grief, but these are words that are swallowed, nauseating and disgusting.
And no, she did not mention Netanyahu’s sons. pic.twitter.com/05n8ohHmnT— Ronen Peled (@ronen_peled) August 20, 2024
Yesterday at midnight, when she decided live to turn her message to the opposite side through an extreme statement that she offered to hand over to Hamas the sons of the senior members of the security establishment – a decision was made on the channel: this time they do not echo her words, and even shrug them off. At 1:27 a.m., Keshet 12 released an unusual message to the media in which it “strongly disclaims its words”. The subtext: this was a deviation from the limits of discourse. But the borders were breached a long time ago, just like the definitions of the envelope on October 7, and the commercial channels are directly to blame for the spread of the toxic discourse.
Freedom of expression, plus the public backlash on social networks, today allow anyone to test limits on television. Keti Shetrit can declare that she is looking for a cleaner, Finney Gershon compared the other day between Miri Regev and Sinvar, incitement from all sides is constantly poured into the mix of live broadcasts, and if it helps to inflate ratings then why not?
Avinathan Or. Kidnapped together with Noa Argamani, photo: courtesy of the family
The day after Ditza Or’s statement and the reservations, most of the programs of all the channels made sure not to refer to her words. A tacit agreement that if the mother of an abductee cannot be judged, then it is better to ignore it. In a rare way, relative to the storm that broke out on their channel, yesterday at 12 they completely excluded the event from the current line-up. They didn’t do a follow-up on the morning show, they didn’t invite panelists to condemn and fight, and that’s how they helped reduce the public noise, which was mainly present on the networks.
But not everyone was able to hold back. For example, Lucy Ahrish opened her program on Network 13 by clarifying that “her (Ditza’s) words are serious by any standard, and therefore we will not hear them again”, but then she detailed exactly what she said, and at the end of the monologue she declared that the real culprit is Netanyahu.
did not hold back. Ahrish, photo: screenshot from Network 13
Channel 14 also used the words of the abducted mother for the purposes of the agenda they are promoting. Shimon Riklin and Aral Segal screened a segment of the provocative interview, presented viewers with tweets with a similar but opposite message (for example, hand over the Prime Minister’s son to Hamas), and used the moment to attack Channel 12. In the evening, they spent more than ten Minutes into the saga, they aggressively defended Ditza Or, attacked the condemnations against her (“There was crazy poison on her, you don’t understand,” Magal explained), presented a skit from “Aeretz Fahadrah” to prove the claim of double standards, and painted the debate with the colors of the right and the left, Yes, Bibi, no, Bibi.
Promoting an agenda, photo: screenshot from Channel 14
To judge or not to judge the mother of the abductee, panelists debated and tweeters debated. But that’s not the story. Because when it’s convenient and it’s in line with an agenda, the media has no problem riding on the families of abductees. They are invited to the studios so that they can confront the representatives of the system, extort extreme statements from them, record them making provocations, squeeze emotions from them and take them to a reality show.
Statement of the families of the abductees in front of the Begin Gate in Kirya in Tel Aviv (archive), photo: Gideon Markowitz
Made them TV stars, but they are victims. Victims of the situation, victims of Hamas, victims of the State of Israel, victims of politicization, victims of commercial television. All of these use them for the purpose of promoting a specific agenda, and when they no longer serve them – throw them to the prey.
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